---
reviewers:
- piosz
- x13n
content_template: templates/concept
title: Logging Using Elasticsearch and Kibana
---

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On the Google Compute Engine (GCE) platform, the default logging support targets
[Stackdriver Logging](https://cloud.google.com/logging/), which is described in detail
in the [Logging With Stackdriver Logging](/docs/user-guide/logging/stackdriver).

This article describes how to set up a cluster to ingest logs into
[Elasticsearch](https://www.elastic.co/products/elasticsearch) and view
them using [Kibana](https://www.elastic.co/products/kibana), as an alternative to
Stackdriver Logging when running on GCE. 

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You cannot automatically deploy Elasticsearch and Kibana in the Kubernetes cluster hosted on Google Kubernetes Engine. You have to deploy them manually.
{{< /note >}}

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To use Elasticsearch and Kibana for cluster logging, you should set the
following environment variable as shown below when creating your cluster with
kube-up.sh:

```shell
KUBE_LOGGING_DESTINATION=elasticsearch
```

You should also ensure that `KUBE_ENABLE_NODE_LOGGING=true` (which is the default for the GCE platform).

Now, when you create a cluster, a message will indicate that the Fluentd log
collection daemons that run on each node will target Elasticsearch:

```shell
$ cluster/kube-up.sh
...
Project: kubernetes-satnam
Zone: us-central1-b
... calling kube-up
Project: kubernetes-satnam
Zone: us-central1-b
+++ Staging server tars to Google Storage: gs://kubernetes-staging-e6d0e81793/devel
+++ kubernetes-server-linux-amd64.tar.gz uploaded (sha1 = 6987c098277871b6d69623141276924ab687f89d)
+++ kubernetes-salt.tar.gz uploaded (sha1 = bdfc83ed6b60fa9e3bff9004b542cfc643464cd0)
Looking for already existing resources
Starting master and configuring firewalls
Created [https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/kubernetes-satnam/zones/us-central1-b/disks/kubernetes-master-pd].
NAME                 ZONE          SIZE_GB TYPE   STATUS
kubernetes-master-pd us-central1-b 20      pd-ssd READY
Created [https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/kubernetes-satnam/regions/us-central1/addresses/kubernetes-master-ip].
+++ Logging using Fluentd to elasticsearch
```

The per-node Fluentd pods, the Elasticsearch pods, and the Kibana pods should
all be running in the kube-system namespace soon after the cluster comes to
life.

```shell
$ kubectl get pods --namespace=kube-system
NAME                                           READY     STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
elasticsearch-logging-v1-78nog                 1/1       Running   0          2h
elasticsearch-logging-v1-nj2nb                 1/1       Running   0          2h
fluentd-elasticsearch-kubernetes-node-5oq0     1/1       Running   0          2h
fluentd-elasticsearch-kubernetes-node-6896     1/1       Running   0          2h
fluentd-elasticsearch-kubernetes-node-l1ds     1/1       Running   0          2h
fluentd-elasticsearch-kubernetes-node-lz9j     1/1       Running   0          2h
kibana-logging-v1-bhpo8                        1/1       Running   0          2h
kube-dns-v3-7r1l9                              3/3       Running   0          2h
monitoring-heapster-v4-yl332                   1/1       Running   1          2h
monitoring-influx-grafana-v1-o79xf             2/2       Running   0          2h
```

The `fluentd-elasticsearch` pods gather logs from each node and send them to
the `elasticsearch-logging` pods, which are part of a
[service](/docs/concepts/services-networking/service/) named `elasticsearch-logging`. These
Elasticsearch pods store the logs and expose them via a REST API.
The `kibana-logging` pod provides a web UI for reading the logs stored in
Elasticsearch, and is part of a service named `kibana-logging`.

The Elasticsearch and Kibana services are both in the `kube-system` namespace
and are not directly exposed via a publicly reachable IP address. To reach them,
follow the instructions for [Accessing services running in a cluster](/docs/concepts/cluster-administration/access-cluster/#accessing-services-running-on-the-cluster).

If you try accessing the `elasticsearch-logging` service in your browser, you'll
see a status page that looks something like this:

![Elasticsearch Status](/images/docs/es-browser.png)

You can now type Elasticsearch queries directly into the browser, if you'd
like. See [Elasticsearch's documentation](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/search-uri-request.html)
for more details on how to do so.

Alternatively, you can view your cluster's logs using Kibana (again using the
[instructions for accessing a service running in the cluster](/docs/user-guide/accessing-the-cluster/#accessing-services-running-on-the-cluster)).
The first time you visit the Kibana URL you will be presented with a page that
asks you to configure your view of the ingested logs. Select the option for
timeseries values and select `@timestamp`. On the following page select the
`Discover` tab and then you should be able to see the ingested logs.
You can set the refresh interval to 5 seconds to have the logs
regularly refreshed.

Here is a typical view of ingested logs from the Kibana viewer:

![Kibana logs](/images/docs/kibana-logs.png)

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Kibana opens up all sorts of powerful options for exploring your logs! For some
ideas on how to dig into it, check out [Kibana's documentation](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/kibana/current/discover.html).

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